A Wider Net

Pizza Hut, the $5billion pizza giant (they are 50 times larger than Papa Ginos - who knew?), just added support for mobile phone orders. The next two largest pizza chains, Dominos and Papa Johns, had already entered that space to some extent.

Hungry football fans can order pizza using their mobile browser or text messages. Pizza Hut aims to receive half of their order via online or mobile within five years.

As a logical progression, soon we may see these pizza chains offering special code scan promotions that look like this:

Here’s how it works: Pizza Hut would print these on ads or coupons. Users simply snap a photo of the image using their phone and a free scanning widget they get from a company like NWW who makes ConnexTo. The system decodes the code and connects their phone to Pizza Hut where they can place an order and receive whatever promotion they were offered with the printed ad. These things can probably be highly personalized, so a digitally printed image on a postcard can tell the Pizza Hut system precisely who the buyer is, look up their buying history, and give them a well-targeted offer.

I guess in that last scenario you’d have to be careful not to share those coupons with your friends. They may discover your deep, dark secret passion for pizza with anchovies, pork rinds, pickled beets, and gummi worms.